


king once and king to be

by grimnismal



Category: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)
Genre: Gen, it is hard to be a messianic figure when you have no reason to believe, lamentations for the once and future king
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 16:28:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10971039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimnismal/pseuds/grimnismal
Summary: "Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise King born of all England."Book One, Chapter Five,Le Morte D'Arthur





	king once and king to be

**Author's Note:**

> " _And many men say that there ys wrytten uppon the thumbe thys:_ **HIC IACET ARTHURUS, REX QUONDAM REXQUE FUTURUS.** "

a spoonful of honey at every prayer to stop seeing your dead friend in the distance  
 ** _-[Warsan Shire](https://twitter.com/warsan_shire/status/600131440668385281)_**

 

 

Vortigern is the second child, the replacement heir to be if there is a need. He wishes for a purpose other than to be the _maybe_ child. On nights where the pain is overwhelming and Mordred’s whispering is unbearable, even through death, he wishes that the child that got away was his, staring at him with light eyes that are not his own, barely out of swaddling clothes.

 

It is too much some days, he returns to his fledgling tower with the intent to learn, learn, _learn_ and continue to learn until he has the power of the mightiest of mages, more than even Mordred had before his brother cut him down like a beast in a field. Catia is all that he has left and even so, she is not enough, never enough to quell the thirst for power that courses through his veins.

 

The sword pulses in the back of his brother—

 

_Uther, Uther, Uther, brother forgive me—_

The water does not move, there is no sign of the child. He would be in his third winter if he were to have lived the boat ride to Londinium. He cannot call to the sword, so he assumes that he lives. Puts the boy out of his mind, continues to work in an endless loop.

 

(He still sees the ghost of his brother kneeling, prostate, as a bewitched sword plummets towards his back and a child drifts away into the fog.)

 

( _Do not fear,_ he would have told the infant as he held him in his arms, _it is but a small sleep_ , as he slipped a poison into the drink he takes at night or onto his skin. Would have cradled the little body as its spirit drifted back to the ether from which it came.)

 

(Even in his power-addled brain he wishes to give his brother this; his only child a peaceful death before he can know any better. It is all he has left to give.)

 

(He would not have done this. He would have cut him down like a lamb. A sacrificial lamb at his altar of evil doings, the sirens below cackling. _You know the price, boy, you know the price_.)

 

\--

 

Goosefat Bill is not a dumb man, nor is he a stupid man. In future, he may be called both these things but for now he is not. The blonde boy in the brothel is not as inconspicuous as one would have. The garbs he floated down the stream in, like an offering to a river god, caught the eye of some without good in their hearts. They are easy to remove, to dispatch their disgusting existence for the sake of _all_ children in the area.

 

The women in the brothel are good, though, they tell him that the boy is doing well and Bedivere laments the missing royal infant. Goosefat Bill knows how to hold a secret, how to take one to the grave with him if need be. And the establishment that he hides in following his third, fourth, _fifth_ prison escape is nothing if not the biggest one.

 

(He looks into the eyes of the toddler with shorn hair, light eyes like his king’s when he held the bewitched sword and sees the remnants of the king he loved, the king he followed. _Born king._ )

 

\--

 

There is something to be said about rumours and legends: a shred of truth is always present.

 

When the children whisper, and graffiti the symbol upon Londinium’s walls all who had rejected the Black King, the usurper, and suffered were recompensed.

 

It is not a surprise to the crowd gathered at the bottom of the ever-reaching tower, children caged away like animals, that the king wished to destroy the Born King. The usurper’s lies and trickery had not won the hearts nor the fear of the public. When the eagle had come, landing directly upon the axe of the executioner their souls had cheered.

 

The gods had not forgotten them; the eagle had come for what was its rightful heir.

 

(The riots would not be quashed, no matter where they were. The free peoples would not be subjugated to a usurper king, let alone a king who had committed overt fratricide. _The Born King,_ they whisper, _grew upon the streets like a weed. He knows us, knows what we need, who we are._ )

 

(They took what little they had as weapons and headed out upon the streets. The boy wept and screamed for those he loved to get to safety, but they would not.)

 

( _He is us, he is us, he is us, he wields the sword, pulls it from stone. The eagle is with us._ )

 

\--

 

It was truly a better death to die for a friend, for a brother, for the hint of something better than for nothing at all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> There's no good quality fanfiction in this tag and this movie deserves a better fate than that.


End file.
